When Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children and all the teams put out a plea for assistance with Hurricane Harvey in Texas, the response was amazing. One man, Walt Engel, an Army veteran who works for the Utility company Alabama, stepped up to the plate and donated more than his share to help his fellow Americans.

His friend, SgtMaj Jackie Gedling, told him they needed an enclosed trailer. So he started looking around for one. He found one and Jackie was off and running. Then came the supplies… tons of them as the generosity of Alabamans came shining through.

During the relief effort, Walt had family in Texas that were helped by Uncle Sam’s – it touched his heart to find that out, even though the helpers had no idea who had donated so many things for the effort.

On the way back to Florida, Tank stopped by and Walt bought him breakfast and a cup of coffee at a local restaurant (Mac and Jerry’s). He told me that Tank was exhausted and still going, headed home to another hurricane. To Walt, it was inspiring.

Walt is on call this week, but says he has been “rounding up supplies.” He is trying to get three semi trailers full of supplies and direct one of them to Florida. So if you thought that Texas was being abandoned in favor of Florida…not a chance.

He told us since he lived through Hurricane George and was on a rescue mission then, it was time to step up and do it again. They were able to get 24 people out during that flooding.

“The rescue was during hurricane George the SGM and I where tasked to rescue An unknown amount of people all we had was an address so after a 2 hour drive in flooded water we reached them we found them and got them out once we where on dry land I stopped at a store where the clerk gave my 10 people hot coffee and we where on our way to a school that took victims of the storm.”

He plans to do a charitable gun raffle in a couple of weeks as well.

We asked Walt if he had anything to say to America in light of the hurricane efforts. He directed his response to US veterans:

“Do the right thing. Get up and get going for America. We all did it once, we can all do it again.”

Walt is a doer. He doesn’t sit idly by in his lounge chair watching the news. He moves out, and does whatever he can for America. #PatriotsUnited #AmericaStrong!

I'm a published author of 3 in-print creative nonfiction books: Dog Paw Chronicles- Life Journeys, Whispers of Heaven, and Bobby Convict - I've written numerous short stories in anthologies, blogs and editorials. I've been working at Uncle Sam's Misguided Children since 2013. I have two degrees in Criminal Justice and worked for over 31 years at a local police department. I am a patriotic American.